Web Analytics Salary Research: 4 Complimentary Approaches

Whether you're employed in web analytics now or thinking of entering the field, whether you're looking for a new job or preparing to talk to your current employer about compensation, it's important to know the going rate.

So ... what kind of research should you do in order to find a reasonable salary range for your position in web analytics?  Here are 4 different, complimentary approaches to try:

1) Seek out surveys

Eric T. Peterson recently released a study on salary distribution in the web analytics industry.  By all means read Eric's 10-page report and then go check out the Web Analytics Demystified site for more data.  Other surveys exist, as well.  Anil Batra just released some research of his own in the past week.

2) Search the job boards

Try this:  Visit your favorite job board and search for your favorite job.  Most postings you turn up will not explicitly state a salary, but a few will.  Use what you find as a point of reference. 

To make this task easier, job search aggregator Simply Hired has an advanced search that allows you to isolate postings with salary info (there's a checkbox in the green section).  My personal favorite job listing site, Indeed.com, has a salary search function where you can compare average salaries for jobs containing certain keywords. 

3) Talk to people

But please ... only if you promise to do it tactfully and sparingly.  The entirely inappropriate question, "How much do you make?" need not be spoken!  However, checking in with a trusted peer or two can help you figure out if you're on the right track during a job search. 

Try talking about ranges rather than absolutes, and never press people to divulge their personal details.  How about, "So, I'm job-hunting and I've done some research and the positions I'm looking for are offering in the $X-$Y range.  Does that seem reasonable to you?"  At the least your conversation partner can answer yes or no, or if you're lucky they might give a few more words on the subject. 

4) Keep an open mind

Think about other forms of compensation - not just money - and figure out what will give you the most satisfaction with your career.  I know that's hard for us - we're numbers people, after all - but it's so SO important.  A blog post I wrote last fall sparked a nice conversation thread on this topic.  Read what my commenters have to say, think about what compensation means to you (tangible and intangible), and then determine your own acceptable salary range in light of the bigger picture.

Comments

[Matt]

Hi June,

Thanks for the info. Good stuff! I haven't finished going through the whole report yet but I was wondering about the term "experience" and how you guys define it. The reason I ask this is because you have some people who actually run web analytics (run reports, crunch the data, provide actionable insight, etc) for their company and then you have people who work for the analytics vendors themselves. To me, these are two totally different experiences in terms of analytics.

The vendor experience is all about building the product (engineers, QA, etc) and supporting clients who use the product (tech support, account managers, consultants, etc). When working for a vendor, you're supporting many clients and not just a single one. But your job isn't to use analytics to help a single company improve their KPIs.

However, as the manager of analytics however your job is to understand the data from a specific vendor tool, analyze that data, and provide actionable insight to help the company improve on KPIs (more qualified traffic, Return on ad spend, increase revenue, increase conversions, etc).

I'm assuming when you guys use the term "experience" in your report that it's a pretty broad definition that might include either situation (and more) above.

Thanks again for this helpful report!

Kind Regards,
Matt Lillig

[June]

Hi Matt! Thanks for reading and commenting.

If the report you're referring to is the Web Analytics Demystified one, I'd encourage you to contact Eric T. Peterson directly and/or comment on his blog at http://blog.webanalyticsdemystified.com/weblog/2007/12/web-analytics-salaries-2007-insights-and-observations.html

Your question about how we define "web analytics experience" is a good one. I agree, an engineering manager at a vendor company is likely to have a completely different day-to-day experience than a marketing manager on the client side - and yet, both might identify as web analytics professionals. As different as we are, there's still a lot of room for overlap - a vendor-side best practices consultant may have very similar duties to someone at an agency, or even a client-side analyst at a company with many unique web properties.

It would certainly be interesting to see Eric's survey data broken down by job title or primary responsibilities - especially for respondents on the vendor side. In the meantime I'd recommend cross-referencing survey data with what's found on the job boards, since job postings will list out exactly what's required of the applicant.